Two health policy researchers who worked on the recent National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine blueprint for a national behavioral health prevention infrastructure wrote an opinion article in STAT outlining the need for the federal government to prioritize mental health/substance use disorder prevention.

The main point: They write, “Prevention works – but only if it is adequately funded, coordinated, and sustained.”

The details:

• Research shows that risk and protective factors are shaped early in life and embedded in families, schools, and communities.
• Research has also demonstrated that evidence-based interventions (e.g., nurse home-visiting programs, family-strengthening models, school-based approaches) improve outcomes and reduce long-term costs.
• Policies that strengthen families and schools (e.g., related to nutrition, housing, income support, regulating products that harm children) are important.

But: These programs and policies are proven but resource intensive.

• Effective prevention requires a trained workforce, technical assistance, data infrastructure, and long-term funding stability.

Recommendations: The authors recommend the following…

• President Trump’s 2027 budget should increase funding for Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies such as the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) to fund behavioral health prevention.
• The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) should encourage states to use Medicaid 1115 waivers to implement evidence-based approaches, focused on school-based strategies and partnerships in community settings that are implementing universal interventions.
• The White House should elevate behavioral health prevention to the same level of coordination afforded to other national priorities. This could include implementing a permanent, senior-level White House mental health task force or coordinator charged with aligning federal agencies, tracking outcomes, and ensuring that prevention, early intervention, and recovery supports are embedded across health, education, justice, and workforce policy.
• Congress should establish within SAMHSA a Center for Prevention of Behavioral Disorders that integrates the agency’s prevention activities or a Center for Mental Health Promotion (equal to/working with the existing Center for Substance Abuse Prevention).
• SAMHSA should develop a centralized and dynamic clearinghouse that practitioners can use to find evidence-based programs.